Professor Bolley is one of the leading plant pathologists of the United States; it was he who first discovered the causes of most of the diseases which plague the farms of North Dakota—of “rust” and “smut” and “root rots” in wheat and other cereals, of potato “scab” and flax “wilt”—and he worked out remedies for these troubles, and taught them to the people. He proved that “flax wilt” is due to “sick” soil—and that seemed a terrible thing to the land interests and the railroads, who were making money out of getting new farmers into North Dakota. These speculators were not interested in having Professor Bolley cure the “sick” soil; it paid them better if the farmers went into bankruptcy every few years. The discoveries of Professor Bolley were worth hundreds of millions to the farmers of the Northwest. He made discoveries about flaxseed, and the linseed crushers and paint makers tried to buy his services—they were used to buying professors. Bolley had them put the money into the institution, with the provision that it was to be employed for his researches. We shall presently see how his enemies tried to take it away from him. Also, this professor-citizen took up the question of the grading of wheat, the sorest point with the Northwestern farmers. They are absolutely at the mercy of the elevator men and the millers, and the whole thing is one colossal swindle. Professor Bolley knows wheat as well as any other man in the world, and he showed the tricks to the farmers. In the first place, the wheat all gets mixed up in the elevators, and there is no way to tell Smith’s from Jones’s. Nevertheless, the farce of “grading” goes on, and its effect is to beat down the price to the farmer. The millers say they must have Number One Red Spring—but there is not enough of this produced in America to feed one big city! What determines the mixture is the percentage of protein, starch, and gluten, and they test the flour as it comes through the mill, and when this or that ingredient is needed, they let in wheat of a certain kind, regardless of its “grade.” That which they grade as “D,” and buy as “feed” wheat, just because it is shrunken, may be the richest of all in proteins, and be used in their best brands of flour.